“’I am sending you out like a sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.’” Matthew 10:16
Man, you really have to be careful about what you ask God sometimes. When you ask Him to break your heart for what breaks His…He’ll do it. When you ask Him to stretch you and grow you…He’ll follow through. I mean, that’s a beautiful thing…but it also realllllly sucks sometimes.
Since we have started ministry here in Phuket, I’ve really been praying for God to stretch me and show me things. Now when I began praying these things, I thought He might stretch me nice and easy…you know, ease me in…nope. Wishful thinking. As we were walking the streets last night God was telling me to look at people, like right in the eyes. Just to look and take it all in. I was obedient, and while I was doing that I began to realize all the lust I was seeing in the eyes of these men. Not even just at the half naked girls dancing on bars or the legit porn that is on some of the TVs in the bars…but eyes of lust towards US. Towards our group of four women, who are probably the most covered up people in a 2-mile radius. As I was looking around and seeing this I began to get really angry. These spirits of anger and judgment just filled me up and I began asking God why he would let me see this when He knew this is how I would feel. He replied by saying, “be a sheep.” I’m like… “ummm are you kidding me?! No!” I am a spitfire…a firecracker, always have been. I’ve always been the one to approach a situation like that head-on and shut it down. I demand respect for the people that I love and most of the time that’s a real blessing. When it comes to the people I love I will go to battle any time. God has given me a very protective heart and when I see these looks these men are giving I want to tear them apart…but God just kept saying, “be a sheep.” I was still getting mad and ignoring Him, so he sent my leader to tell me, “be a sheep not a wolf” so I started praying. God is showing me that these men see His light in us and His love in us and His beauty in us and they are lusting after it because they know, and see it is something different. They want what we have and so they are lusting after it because lust is all they know. They are just searching for their identities just like all of us are and God called me to show them love and grace, not to tear them apart or judge them. It is such an incredibly hard thing to do, but like I said, when you ask God to stretch you…He will, and it will almost never be in the ways you expected.
Living in pursuit of Him,
Rach
